Speaking as a US citizen, you are of course alluding to the American blood spilled in china during WW2 helping to fight the japanese invaders?
Besides, little things like representative democracy matter in the long run. China is a dictatorship and their history is no excuse for totalitarianism or aggressive behavior above and beyond normal competitiveness in the world of business. Illegal activity in western nations generally gets exposed by the press and corrected.
In China it's state sanctioned. They're thieves actively stealing anything they can, particularly intellectual property. All one needs to do is look at the company they keep internationally: North Korea, Iran, Russia, Syria, Cuba. Venezuela - all countries with a strong bias toward dictatorship.
Yes, but they would still have to broadcast wifi and remain connected so the network sees them. All of them. Face it, it's a dumb idea because the functionality it would bring is almost completely unnecessary.
What we need is a system whereby simple consumer products can made "smart ready". Clearly every light bulb does not need to be on the internet, at least at present; it's a waste of bandwidth and merely another source of interference for existing wifi networks. A better place to start might be smart sockets that use existing wiring to network the house.. That would be modular allowing homeowners only to change the sockets that they really need. It would also avoid the boondoggle of expensive whole house systems.
Deregulation worked great for the airline industry. Prices have dropped to something like 1/5 of what they were a few decades ago. You cannot innovate by increased regulation. A healthy, competitive free market almost always brings lower prices and increased consumer choice.
Nonsense. It's called "negotiation", something obama says he's willing to do but never actually does. Instead he simply blames republicans for everything and people eat it up.
We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem: see "Laffer Curve". A slightly smaller increase in spending is not even close to a solution.
And what pressures exist to prevent fraud and waste? The TVA has had it's share of abuses over the years. Government programs and agencies simply go begging to the taxpayer if they don't meet their budgets. It happens over and over and the the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill.
The biggest problem with government programs is that they generally require an act of congress (and all the politics this implies) in order to change something that's wrong. In a free and competitive market, the consumer at least has a choice as to where they spend their money. If one product is too expensive or is undesirable for some other reason one can simply buy a competitors product, or not buy at all.
With government run programs you generally have no choices at all and if you decide not to pay, police will eventually come to arrest and jail you for non payment of taxes. How is this an improvement?
Although the F-35 is the poster child for poor procurement processes, the simple fact of the matter is that entitlement spending dwarfs defense spending.
Finding waste in government spending is easy. It's present everywhere, all the time. For every egregious example of waste in military spending you are guaranteed to find a proportional amount in any other program.
The only effective way to control it is through competition in a free market. The more a given market comes under government control, the less competition and freedom exists and the more wasteful it becomes. It's human nature.
I fail to see how internet access is so important that the.gov needs to be in the business. You could similarly argue that.gov/union control has killed education.
Less choice in any market is always worse. Put the.gov in charge and it will take an act of congress to change anything. Those idiots can't seem to add, much less promulgate good internet access.
Your sarcasm meter may need recalibrating, but you're right about the new ad campaign.
This kind of shit is exactly why people hate AT&T. I wonder what kind of language exists in their user contract that makes them think they can do this sort of thing?
...and another major truth about the online world!
The really scary part is this: all these companies operate their own walled gardens and can do with them what they will. Freedom of speech doesn't really apply. Apple and Facebook are bad enough in the way they weed their "gardens", but Google is using the entire internet as it's garden. You can put up a web page about anything you like but if Google decides they don't like the content it won't show up in searches. Poof! You've been "disappeared".
Free speech is always the first casualty to profits. I'm not an anti-corporatist by any stretch, but even a libertarian leaning free marketer like me will admit that a little regulation goes a long way in defense of free speech. These guys need to stop blocking stuff simply because people find it offensive or scary or worse yet....unprofitable.
The simple fact that anyone who produces evidence to the contrary is automatically suspect is perhaps THE biggest problem with the entire climate change debate.
If they ever threaten to eliminate cash it will represent a huge increase in governmental control. Poor people like cash because they can buy "on the sly" avoiding taxation altogether.
A cash free economy essentially means perfect tax collection for the.gov as well as perfect control over the economy. This sounds even worse when you consider that power in the hands of an oppressive regime. Economic freedom is one of the most basic freedoms of all.
You must be naive in the extreme to believe that the dictatorship would allow anything resembling open internet access. Their censorship would make China look free and open.
No, the norkies would use it as the ultimate tool for oppression. Take everything good about the internet and take it away, take everything bad and put it on steriods. That's what they would get. 1984 would just be the starting point.
Wouldn't it be better if you had access to his mental health records? After all, he could kill you just as dead with a knife, club or even his fists. FBI stats show each of these are weapons used in a significant number of murders each year.
Another factor that is far more important is socioeconomic status. Filter out the urban poor and the number of murders drops to very low levels.
The kicker is that people who hold CHLs have a lower crime rate that police officers. You are in more danger if your neighbor is a cop than if they have a CHL.
The gun debate needs to rely more on facts and less on emotion.
I really don't think their problem is "lack of internet" so much as it is "utter and complete dictatorship". Our first priority needs to be getting rid of the dictatorship, not bringing them internet. All they will do with modern networked computing is reinforce the dictatorship. For them, "1984" is an instruction manual.
Since windows is the de facto standard and as such the bulk of malware is targeted at it. Pick any platform, make it the standard and the amount of malware written for it will explode.
Nice rhymes BTW - that english degree is paying off for you!
Exactly what definition of "free markets" are you using? Petroleum refining has multiple players in a very capital intensive industry - market conditions don't change very fast under those circumstances. Refineries are big and complicated and need engineers (as opposed to liberal arts majors) to run them; how "free" do you think they can be? Occasionally stuff needs to be fixed or replaced! You are confusing free as in beer with free as in speech. And the market already has plenty of both. "Fair, competitive and transparent" is nothing but code for "let socialist idiots fuck it up".
And did you fail basic economics? Speculators can't move a market without cornering it. They make money by anticipating markets. Economic freedom is one of the most basic freedoms of all. No one speculator has the power to move a market. They will fight each other tooth and nail to prevent that from happening. Speculation is an essential function of a free market.
What exactly should be done? Increased regulation and government oversight of an efficient market has never in history make them more efficient.
You have to admit that there is a world of difference between western democracy, no matter how flawed, and they types of tyrannical regimes as seen in Vietnam. I wouldn't put them in the same category as Iran and North Korea as exporters of tyranny but the point still stands - opposition is not allowed.
The other thing is that you can't do is pretend that there will ever be a perfect government. Corrupt influences exist regardless of they kind of government you have. The best you can do is design the government with checks and balances to resist those influences. It's not like passing laws magically makes bad things go away. Recall the quote attributable to Churchill - "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others".
And it's only as good as long as people actively participate. Benjamin Franklin Quote: "Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
In places like Vietnam there is no way to actively participate in government except by supporting the ruling party and status quo.
I'm not saying the current system is the best, but unless you figure out a way for people to get paid, they have no incentive to do any work. I read certain journals because the editors have credibility but they simply can not do it for free. Science isn't like social media where the ideas with the most +1 ratings are the best. And who is going to pay to maintain the hardware and software infrastructure implied by your "digital tools"?
I swear half the people on slashdot anymore have no idea how the real world operates.
Slashdot Mirror
Or the east. Oh wait, the russians are already actively supplying assad with arms.
This was reported yesterday. Once upon a time, Slashdot was a great place to pick up news early. Not any more.
Speaking as a US citizen, you are of course alluding to the American blood spilled in china during WW2 helping to fight the japanese invaders?
Besides, little things like representative democracy matter in the long run. China is a dictatorship and their history is no excuse for totalitarianism or aggressive behavior above and beyond normal competitiveness in the world of business. Illegal activity in western nations generally gets exposed by the press and corrected.
In China it's state sanctioned. They're thieves actively stealing anything they can, particularly intellectual property. All one needs to do is look at the company they keep internationally: North Korea, Iran, Russia, Syria, Cuba. Venezuela - all countries with a strong bias toward dictatorship.
Yes, but they would still have to broadcast wifi and remain connected so the network sees them. All of them. Face it, it's a dumb idea because the functionality it would bring is almost completely unnecessary.
What we need is a system whereby simple consumer products can made "smart ready". Clearly every light bulb does not need to be on the internet, at least at present; it's a waste of bandwidth and merely another source of interference for existing wifi networks. A better place to start might be smart sockets that use existing wiring to network the house.. That would be modular allowing homeowners only to change the sockets that they really need. It would also avoid the boondoggle of expensive whole house systems.
Give up hope. Liberal idiots think you can maintain the peace by wishing really hard.
Deregulation worked great for the airline industry. Prices have dropped to something like 1/5 of what they were a few decades ago. You cannot innovate by increased regulation. A healthy, competitive free market almost always brings lower prices and increased consumer choice.
Nonsense. It's called "negotiation", something obama says he's willing to do but never actually does. Instead he simply blames republicans for everything and people eat it up.
We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem: see "Laffer Curve". A slightly smaller increase in spending is not even close to a solution.
And what pressures exist to prevent fraud and waste? The TVA has had it's share of abuses over the years. Government programs and agencies simply go begging to the taxpayer if they don't meet their budgets. It happens over and over and the the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill.
The biggest problem with government programs is that they generally require an act of congress (and all the politics this implies) in order to change something that's wrong. In a free and competitive market, the consumer at least has a choice as to where they spend their money. If one product is too expensive or is undesirable for some other reason one can simply buy a competitors product, or not buy at all.
With government run programs you generally have no choices at all and if you decide not to pay, police will eventually come to arrest and jail you for non payment of taxes. How is this an improvement?
Although the F-35 is the poster child for poor procurement processes, the simple fact of the matter is that entitlement spending dwarfs defense spending.
Finding waste in government spending is easy. It's present everywhere, all the time. For every egregious example of waste in military spending you are guaranteed to find a proportional amount in any other program.
The only effective way to control it is through competition in a free market. The more a given market comes under government control, the less competition and freedom exists and the more wasteful it becomes. It's human nature.
I fail to see how internet access is so important that the .gov needs to be in the business. You could similarly argue that .gov/union control has killed education.
Less choice in any market is always worse. Put the .gov in charge and it will take an act of congress to change anything. Those idiots can't seem to add, much less promulgate good internet access.
Let the market do it's thing..
Your sarcasm meter may need recalibrating, but you're right about the new ad campaign.
This kind of shit is exactly why people hate AT&T. I wonder what kind of language exists in their user contract that makes them think they can do this sort of thing?
Gunz r baaad MMMMMMMMMMMkay?
is to kill all the people.
...and another major truth about the online world!
The really scary part is this: all these companies operate their own walled gardens and can do with them what they will. Freedom of speech doesn't really apply. Apple and Facebook are bad enough in the way they weed their "gardens", but Google is using the entire internet as it's garden. You can put up a web page about anything you like but if Google decides they don't like the content it won't show up in searches. Poof! You've been "disappeared".
Free speech is always the first casualty to profits. I'm not an anti-corporatist by any stretch, but even a libertarian leaning free marketer like me will admit that a little regulation goes a long way in defense of free speech. These guys need to stop blocking stuff simply because people find it offensive or scary or worse yet....unprofitable.
The simple fact that anyone who produces evidence to the contrary is automatically suspect is perhaps THE biggest problem with the entire climate change debate.
If they ever threaten to eliminate cash it will represent a huge increase in governmental control. Poor people like cash because they can buy "on the sly" avoiding taxation altogether.
A cash free economy essentially means perfect tax collection for the .gov as well as perfect control over the economy. This sounds even worse when you consider that power in the hands of an oppressive regime. Economic freedom is one of the most basic freedoms of all.
You must be naive in the extreme to believe that the dictatorship would allow anything resembling open internet access. Their censorship would make China look free and open.
No, the norkies would use it as the ultimate tool for oppression. Take everything good about the internet and take it away, take everything bad and put it on steriods. That's what they would get. 1984 would just be the starting point.
Wouldn't it be better if you had access to his mental health records? After all, he could kill you just as dead with a knife, club or even his fists. FBI stats show each of these are weapons used in a significant number of murders each year.
Another factor that is far more important is socioeconomic status. Filter out the urban poor and the number of murders drops to very low levels.
The kicker is that people who hold CHLs have a lower crime rate that police officers. You are in more danger if your neighbor is a cop than if they have a CHL.
The gun debate needs to rely more on facts and less on emotion.
Or "growing sufficient food".
I really don't think their problem is "lack of internet" so much as it is "utter and complete dictatorship". Our first priority needs to be getting rid of the dictatorship, not bringing them internet. All they will do with modern networked computing is reinforce the dictatorship. For them, "1984" is an instruction manual.
Either way, it's really not anyone's business. Should we also be putting people's personal information online for current driver's license holders?
What if one of those women holding a CHL did so owing to death threats from a jealous ex? They just put her life in danger.
Or, if you want to up the "obnoxious" factor, what if they published the names and addresses of women who have had abortions?
"Outing" people is a really low political tactic and needs to be illegal.
Mali is essentially a failed state with islamic jihadis fronting the "revolution". Nice guys, those.
If they take over, nobody will mine anything in their religious paradise on earth.
Since windows is the de facto standard and as such the bulk of malware is targeted at it. Pick any platform, make it the standard and the amount of malware written for it will explode.
Nice rhymes BTW - that english degree is paying off for you!
Exactly what definition of "free markets" are you using? Petroleum refining has multiple players in a very capital intensive industry - market conditions don't change very fast under those circumstances. Refineries are big and complicated and need engineers (as opposed to liberal arts majors) to run them; how "free" do you think they can be? Occasionally stuff needs to be fixed or replaced! You are confusing free as in beer with free as in speech. And the market already has plenty of both. "Fair, competitive and transparent" is nothing but code for "let socialist idiots fuck it up".
And did you fail basic economics? Speculators can't move a market without cornering it. They make money by anticipating markets. Economic freedom is one of the most basic freedoms of all. No one speculator has the power to move a market. They will fight each other tooth and nail to prevent that from happening. Speculation is an essential function of a free market.
What exactly should be done? Increased regulation and government oversight of an efficient market has never in history make them more efficient.
You have to admit that there is a world of difference between western democracy, no matter how flawed, and they types of tyrannical regimes as seen in Vietnam. I wouldn't put them in the same category as Iran and North Korea as exporters of tyranny but the point still stands - opposition is not allowed.
The other thing is that you can't do is pretend that there will ever be a perfect government. Corrupt influences exist regardless of they kind of government you have. The best you can do is design the government with checks and balances to resist those influences. It's not like passing laws magically makes bad things go away. Recall the quote attributable to Churchill - "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others".
And it's only as good as long as people actively participate. Benjamin Franklin Quote: "Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
In places like Vietnam there is no way to actively participate in government except by supporting the ruling party and status quo.
I'm not saying the current system is the best, but unless you figure out a way for people to get paid, they have no incentive to do any work. I read certain journals because the editors have credibility but they simply can not do it for free. Science isn't like social media where the ideas with the most +1 ratings are the best. And who is going to pay to maintain the hardware and software infrastructure implied by your "digital tools"?
I swear half the people on slashdot anymore have no idea how the real world operates.